Re: can ups be operated from the keyboard?

From: William F. Dowling (william.dowling_at_isinet.com)
Date: Thu Oct 11 2001 - 13:41:07 BST

  • Next message: John Utz: "can ups be operated from the keyboard?" 
    Flemming Madsen writes:
 > 
 > Someone mentione an idea about letting different parts of ups have input focus.
 > Ie. 
 > 
 > 1) the input field (of course) for how it works now, 
 > 2) the button panel for stuff like (s)tep (n)ext etc. captions should have
 >    the mnemomnic shortcut char underlined
 > 3) other panels as well. how about e(x)pand (c)ollapes for data structures etc.
 >    the buttons at the top of the panel have mnemonics underlined.
 > 4) code panel: (b)reak toggle, (i)nsert mode, <PgUP>/<PgDN> (Yes!),
 >    (j)ump to func, (b)ack etc ...
 > 
 > The focus should be settable with the mouse and/or the tab key. Ideally it should
 > be possible to operate ups without touching the mouse at all !

Of the various ideas floated, this seems most natural to me.  One way
to indicate which panel has focus as you are tabbing through would be
to redraw the labels from
 start next step  etc
to
 s(t)art (n)ext (s)tep  etc
when those buttons become keyboard-active.  Maybe this was implicit in
Flemming's proposal.  When focus moves to a region without buttons,
I'm not sure how best to indicate that visually.  Thickening borders
(as is done in some applications) would seem contrary to the ups
aesthetic to me.

Will


-- 
William F. Dowling
ISI/Thomson Scientific (www.isinet.com)
215-386-0100 x-1156

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